Wastelands, 2149

"We've got another case of plague," Meredith Hammerstein called.

Eden McClain's heart sank through the bottom of her chest. "Give me a moment," she said to Billy, trying to feign a smile. Dragging the stethoscope down around her neck and moving away from the teenager on the trundle, she shoved aside the flaps of the tent she was working in. Two of Absolution's men were holding a stretcher with a limp body slumped on it beneath a blanket. It could be anyone. Friend, neighbor, or enemy....

"Who?"

"Ian Carver," Meredith said.

Jesus. Ian had been with the town since the beginning, when Eden's brother forged Absolution out of virtually nothing. Ian had dandled her on his knee when she was a little girl and followed her brother here after the bloodied night that tore her family—and her village—apart when she was eighteen. In this violent wasteland she called home, all the townsfolk were practically family, but Ian was the grandfather she'd never had.

Eden twitched aside the blanket, revealing his gaunt face. He was sixty if he was a day, and though the red rash across his cheeks and dry, cracked lips looked like they'd only come through in the last couple of hours, he wouldn't last the usual course of infection by the look of it.

"Ian," she whispered, her heart breaking.

Delirious eyes met hers. He frowned, and then sucked at his dry mouth. "Edie...."

"I've got you," she said, the doctor in her taking over, even when her heart squeezed like it was about to send her into cardiac arrest. "Joe and Connor, set him up in the next tent over. I want an IV rigged into his arm, and start him on fluids. Make sure you set the containment up properly and disinfect yourselves, then find HAZMAT suits. You're both drafted."

The two men looked at each other. Grown men who quaked at the signs of plague, and the threat they could be next.

"Now," she stressed, setting her hands on her hips. "Before this gets loose in the general population."

Too late for that. But she didn't know what else to do.

She was a healer, damn it. Her duties ran the gamut of broken limbs, herbal remedies, births, and minor surgeries. The people of the Wastelands didn't have access to the fancy hospitals she'd heard the Eastern Confederacy used—sterile buildings created specifically for medicine, or so she could only dream—so she was it.

But everyone was looking to her as if she would have the answers to this, and Eden didn't have a clue.

The salt plague, some of them had taken to calling it.

Or the sweats.

"That's twelve cases." Meredith met her eyes.

"I'm well aware of that, thanks," she shot back, slipping out of the battered old HAZMAT suit she'd taken to wearing. Nobody knew what caused the salt plague. Not yet, anyway. It was bacterial in nature, but she didn't know how it spread. In the absence of that information, she'd taken to using all the precautions she could, including dosing herself with a prophylactic antibiotic. She'd felt guilty about wasting the medication when it could have been used on actual plague victims, but the council who ruled Absolution had ordered all medical staff start treating themselves, and she understood the precaution.

If her medical team went down, they were all dead.

Most of the infection cases had occurred in those who worked on the farms, and it hadn't hit the actual town until now. Infected body fluids were definitely a no-go zone, but from her questioning there'd been isolated incidences where patients hadn't come into contact with any body fluids or dead animals. One of the outrangers hadn't even come across a human until he roared into town on his motorbike and promptly collapsed in the dirt, begging for water.

Which left a damned mystery she needed to solve.

Something was spreading the disease.

But what?

"What are we going to do, Eden?" Meredith asked.

"I'm working on it."

The problem was, with her limited resources out here in the Wastelands there wasn't a damned lot she could do. Tugging off her plastic gloves, Eden threw them at the medical waste—which was a fancy way of saying the trash can someone would burn the contents of later. Then she washed her hands before she brushed her hair out of her eyes.

She had nothing.

No, she had less than nothing.

And she was down to her last box of antibiotics. She'd been expecting a truckload of oral antibiotics a week ago, but there was no sign of the regular smuggler.

Maybe Absolution's not the only place that's hard up at the moment....

Whispers kept coming north from the slaver towns down along the southern border with New Mérida of the plague running rife through the local populations down there. Entire slaver cities were burning as they tried to contain the spread. The thought of slavers dying didn't bother her—healing oath or not—but her heart ached for the slaves.

"We have to quarantine the town," Meredith said, folding her arms across her chest.

"And what about the outriders?" Not all of them had made it back to Absolution, despite the recall.

Meredith looked uncomfortable.

"No," Eden said sharply. She agreed with quarantine and had set up this facility in the outskirts of Absolution, but to lock down the entire town? Leave the rest of their people out there among the monstrous wargs and reivers that stalked the Wastelands? Not acceptable. "You're not just going to leave them out there. They'll be better off taking their chances with the plague."

"The council is meeting later this afternoon," the councilor warned. "Something needs to be done. We've all heard the rumors coming from the south. This could impact upon everyone. If we move too slowly...."

Eden turned on her. "What do you mean they're meeting?" She was part of that council, damn it. "Who called it?"

"Bart."

Of course. The bastard thought he ran the place. "Why am I only just hearing about this? And what time? I've been trying to get in contact with the Confederacy enclave. Our scheduled radio contact is this afternoon."

She needed to warn them. The secretive Eastern Confederacy had started making overtures toward the Wastelands and its people of late, and while Bart had shot down the deal she'd been trying to make with them—the mining rights to the old abandoned Copperplate mine nearby in exchange for vital medicines, food, gasoline, and technology—they were still surveying in the area.

Bart was practically rubbing his hands together at the thought of driving the deal up, but Eden had met with the enclave. Miles Wentworth, the man in charge of the surveying team, didn't strike her as someone who kowtowed to Wastelander scum. His words, not hers.

The last time Bart tried to add conditions to the exchange, Miles simply gave her a thin smile and told her he'd be in touch.

That had been three weeks ago.

"Meeting's at three."

"Which is exactly when I'm scheduled to radio them." Eden seethed. "How convenient."

Meredith had the good grace to look embarrassed.

What was more important? "I have to call in with the Confederacy." It was ethically irresponsible to not warn them, despite the fact their medical team had advances and technology she could only dream of. "Tell Bart if he makes any preemptive moves I won't like, he'd better damned well hope he doesn't get the plague. Remind him he might be at my mercy in the next week or two."

As far as threats went it was weak—Eden couldn't turn someone away who needed medical attention—but Bart had always been a little scared of her.

He might believe it.

"Eden!" someone called from several tents over. "I need you urgently."

Maggie Carpenter, if she wasn't mistaken.

Eden glared at Meredith. "Don't make any rapid decisions. We can still lock this down. We just need to work out how the plague's being spread. I'll discuss this with you later."

* * *

"What do you mean we've got an urgent case that needs my review?" Eden asked as she strode along in Maggie's wake. "I've got to radio in to the enclave. Can't Lou-Ann look at it?"

Diagnosing the plague was well within Lou-Ann's capabilities, after all.

Maggie led her toward the tent at the end, glancing over her shoulder. "I didn't want to say anything in front of Meredith, because she'll run straight back to Bart."

Maggie might have been Bart's younger sister, and a town councilor, but she and her brother were as different as night and day. Barely a year apart, she and Eden had become fast friends over a decade ago.

"What do you mean?" Eden's voice lowered. "What's going on?"

"We had a rider come in. He's got an unusual case of the plague, and his timeline doesn't match up. Asked to speak to you, and you alone."

Curiouser and curiouser.

Her interest zeroed in on the intriguing part of the sentence. "Unusual case of the plague?"

The first sign of the plague was the rash. Large reddish lumps around the lymph nodes and across the chest, which she was calling phase one. Onset seemed to occur between two and seven days after initial infection, though her case study was small and precise estimates difficult to lock down.

Phase two involved fever and intense sweating, which followed the rash by a couple of days.

Roughly twenty-four hours into the fever, the vomiting and diarrhea started, and this was where everything started to go downhill. In combination with the intense sweating, it caused hypernatremia; low fluid volumes with a high sodium serum concentration in the patient's plasma. Hence why they were so damned thirsty and confused. She'd been trying to cautiously treat the electrolyte imbalance, but the onset was often acute, and from there the diagnosis led to twitching, seizures, coma... and then, in the two cases that had progressed so far, death.

Only one of her patients had recovered, and he'd been a healthy young man with a strong immune system.

Maggie shrugged helplessly. "I don't know the details. He won't speak to me or any of the others on your team, he just kept insisting on speaking to you. He's in here."

Eden gloved up, dragged a surgical mask down over her mouth and nose, and then entered the tent Maggie had led her to.

A man sat on the trundle in the corner, his knees pressed together. A rash bloomed across his forehead and down his throat, though the olive color of his skin made it appear more of a ruddy brown in color.

She'd never seen him in her life.

"Hi," she said, "I'm Eden McClain. Maggie said you'd asked for me personally?"

"Eden McClain?" he asked, his eyes darting suspiciously. "Can you prove that?"

Uh, what? "Prove who I am?"

"Please."

Definitely weird. "I'm sorry, but I don't even know you."

"Henry Chin," he said politely.

Still not ringing any bells, but the flash of his perfect teeth momentarily transfixed her. White, straight, not a hint of decay or a single snaggle tooth. No Wastelander she'd ever seen had teeth like that. It finally dawned on her. "You're with the Confederacy."

Instantly he looked nervous.

She held her hands up to soothe him. "We don't exactly carry any means to identify ourselves here in the Wastelands, but I am Eden McClain. I've been dealing with Miles Wentworth, the Confederacy's chief surveyor."

"I know."

"I... see. Is everything all right in the survey camp? I was going to radio in this afternoon and warn them about the plague. I'd have expected you to have a medical team to see to your rash and—"

"Unfortunately, we know about the plague. I can't say any more until I've been assured of my safety." He looked uncomfortable. "I'm not supposed to be here. I want a promise of asylum before I continue."

"Asylum? From... the Confederacy?" What was going on? "You want to stay in the Wastelands?"

Who in their right mind would give up their advanced levels of society in exchange for a barren desert full of monsters trying to rip your throat out?

She pressed her gloved fingertips to his forehead. "Have you been feeling unwell? Hot? Sweating?" Maybe the confusion had gotten to him early? But his skin felt only mildly warm.

Mr. Chin grabbed her wrist. "Please. You don't know what you're dealing with. You'll let me stay? You won't let them take me back?"

"Of course you can stay. You'll have to volunteer on the settlement roster a minimum of fifteen hours a week, but housing can be found for you, and food."

The breath eased out of him. "Thank you."

"Describe your symptoms for me," she said, flipping open the data pad she'd practically sold her soul for.

"Is that Confederacy issue?" he asked.

She looked up over the edge of the data pad. "Yes. Mr. Wentworth gifted it to me."

"I wouldn't use that," he said, his gaze dropping. "They can hack your data from hundreds of miles away."

"I've been assured it's out of range of their data stations. Wentworth complained about Absolution being in a 'blackspot.’ I think that was the term he used." She used the stylus to tap in a small note under symptoms: Paranoia. But was it merely a measure of Mr. Chin's personality? Or something more insidious? "And it's not as though I have anything on this of import."

Eden took his vitals. "You said the Confederacy know about the plague? How long have you been feeling like this? When did the rash first appear?"

He answered her questions tersely. Yes, they knew. Two weeks. Eight days.

Hmm. Pulse regular, limited signs of fluid turgidity when she pinched his skin. Taking the small torch she'd been given by the Confederacy during the opening negotiations, she peered into his eyes, and then insisted upon examining his chest and taking his temperature.

"You have a mild case of plague," she announced, stepping back. Maggie was right. The timeline was unusual. Phase two turned swiftly into phase three, and Mr. Chin's rash had appeared eight days ago. "You should consider yourself lucky."

"I shouldn't have any signs of it at all," he said tersely.

"I'm sure—"

"Wentworth promised the vaccination we received last month would protect us," Mr. Chin insisted.

Eden slowly lifted her head. "Vaccination?" She'd read about the theory in old pre-Darkening manuals she'd salvaged over the years.

When she'd been a little girl, she even remembered a smuggler injecting her with a combination of needles for a small fortune, though Eden had no clue what they'd been for. That was the year measles killed five people in their town, including her mom.

Her family had only had enough money to protect her and her brother, Adam, and Eden had known then she wanted to become a healer, so nobody else would lose their mom.

"Wait. Wentworth and the Confederacy expected the plague to hit?" And they hadn't breathed a word during the negotiations? Granted, they'd been stalled in the last month, but... it was common courtesy.

"He knew there were cases of it. I'm a geologist by trade, so I wasn't involved in most meetings, but I saw a disease outburst map displayed on the map table when I was checking in one night. Wentworth swiftly downsized the map, which made me wonder at the time. Not my area though, and it doesn't pay to be too curious. He evacuated the survey camp last week," Chin replied. "The reivers were starting to get restless, and there was talk of dead bodies being found out in the ranges. Wentworth wanted to clear the area until the mayhem died down, and considering there'd been no progress with the settlement agreement, he was feeling restless for home. Wanted to get back to Cortez City."

Eden had radioed in two weeks ago, as usual, and Wentworth hadn't breathed a word of it. That was the day Emily started complaining of a rash.

"How'd you end up being left behind?"

Chin looked down at his clasped hands. "I hid in the mines during the evac. Wentworth was on a strict timetable, so I knew he'd have to leave without me."

Guy was definitely crazy. "I would kill to have half the resources the Confederacy has."

"I would risk my life to have half the freedom you Wastelanders have," he replied simply.

Eden slowly nodded. She'd heard living in the Confederacy city-states was almost as dangerous as living outside their walls. No privacy. The military in charge of everything. Citizens encouraged to report dissidents. Enormous prison facilities where people vanished.

And that was only what she'd heard from traders.

"Tell me more about this vaccination," she said. "I've only been able to discover the disease is bacterial in nature, and seems to be responding to the antibiotics I have."

Antibiotics she was about to run out of. There were limited supplies of dextrose and saline solution too. Limited supplies of damned near everything. If she didn't get another shipment through from a Confederacy smuggler in the next day or two, she'd be shit out of luck.

"That's the problem," Mr. Chin said. "The salt plague isn't natural. Your antibiotics will seem to work. Initially. Your patients will start to feel better, their fever will break, and then all of a sudden you'll notice the bacteria seems to retaliate. Within twenty-four hours you'll lose them."

Eden's throat went dry. "What?"

Mr. Chin opened his mouth, clearly trying to work out the right words. "I don't know to how to say this, but this plague has been genetically tampered with. It's been designed to be resistant to most strains of antibiotics. Last year there were rumors of one of the Confederacy generals running a top-secret project that tested on human subjects. He set up a private laboratory in Cortez City, and a corporation called the Radisson-Meyers Syndicate.

"A whistle-blower broke the news to the military; General Radisson was buying Wastelanders from the slavers down south and using them in certain medical experiments. He used his military access to smuggle them into Cortez City." Chin swallowed, and glanced down at his lap. "My wife, Megan, worked as an attaché to Lieutenant Bligh, who exposed Radisson. They kept it out of the docu-feeds, but she spoke of it to me when she was home. Said there was enough salt plague created to wipe out millions. Radisson was planning on a coup; he was the only one with the cure. It bothered her how they kept it quiet, and then Megan was killed on her way to work one day. Someone planted a bomb under her car. I couldn't stay there any longer, so I put my hand up for the Copperplate Mine Expedition."

"Eden?" Maggie burst into the tent breathlessly.

Eden held up her hand, staring into Chin's eyes. This couldn't be happening. Most of her plague cases had been getting better. "How do I cure them then?"

"You can't," he said simply. "The only ones who might have that cure are what's left of Radisson-Meyers. Lieutenant Bligh locked down everything when he became general."

"Eden!"

Damn it. "Not now, Maggie," she shot, swiveling to face the other councilor as Maggie held the tent flaps open.

"It's Haven," Maggie said, her face drawn and pale.

That punched the breath from Eden's lungs. "What do you mean, 'It's Haven'?"

"Luc Wade's on the radio. Said he needs you there. Now. He thinks they've got a plague case."

"Adam?" She straightened abruptly. Her brother lived there, but he was supposed to be in the north.

"No." Maggie shook her head. "Luc said he wasn't there. Adam and Mia left last week to visit her sister. There's been no word from them since."

Could be a good sign. Maybe they left before the first victims started coming down with plague.

Haven was a small nearby settlement that had been decimated by reivers a few years back. When her brother was outed as a warg and thrown out of Absolution, he'd eventually wound his way back there and settled. Only a couple dozen people lived there now, and she knew all of them intimately. Half of them were what she considered family.

The heat drained from her face. "Who?"

Maggie shook her head. "It's Lily."

Eden's adopted niece.